In 2015, he was awarded the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan's Freedom of the Press Lifetime Achievement Award for his investigations into human rights issues on Okinawa. His research has featured in reports for the U.S. Congress and been the focus of debate in the Japanese parliament.

Defoliated Island, a TV documentary about his investigation into the usage of Agent Orange in Japan, was winner of a 2012 award for excellence from the Association of Commercial Broadcasters - a first for a foreign journalist. In 2016, the follow-up program was winner of Japan's top TV documentary award. Mitchell's book about military defoliants - Tsuiseki: Okinawa no Karehazai - was published in 2014.

Outside Okinawa, his investigations into the decades-long pedophile scandal at Japan's most famous international school prompted an independent enquiry, new school guidelines and compensation for survivors.

In 2011, Mitchell traveled to Tohoku to report on relief operations following the 3.11 earthquake and tsunami. His poems based upon those experiences led British media to call him "Bard of a Broken Country" and the work was published in an acclaimed collection titled March and After to support ongoing volunteer activities.

Mitchell reports as a special correspondent for Okinawa Times. He is an Asia-Pacific Journal associate and visiting researcher at the International Peace Research Institute of Meiji Gakuin University. He also serves on the Board of Advisors to NGO Civilian Exposure.

Mitchell's latest features - and press coverage in English and Japanese - can be found here.

w/ Oliver Stone, Okinawa, 2013.

World Peace Center, Okinawa, 2014.

Mitchell's investigations have revealed extensive military contamination on Okinawa; this work has helped exposed veterans to receive aid from the U.S. government. He has also uncovered photographs confirming the deployment of atomic weapons to the island and its secret role during the Cuban Missile Crisis. This research forms the basis of a permanent exhibit within Okinawa's sole surviving nuclear silo at the World Peace Centre, Onna Village.

Among Mitchell's other investigations are unseen images of the 1970 Koza Riot - Okinawa's largest outpouring of anti-military sentiment - and evidence the Pentagon tested chemical weapons on its own troops on Okinawa during the 1960s. In 2013, Mitchell broke news about the Cold War disposal of tons of chemical weapons - including nerve gas - near Okinawa's coast and the dangers the dump still poses today.

In 2016, further research revealed US Marine Corps orientation lectures for new arrivals on Okinawa denigrated local residents and downplayed military crimes. Following public outrage, the briefings were revised and their contents made more transparent. ​Mitchell regularly gives lectures to inform the public about military contamination on Okinawa. In 2014, he delivered the keynote address at Okinawa's first international symposium on chemical weapons and the following year he gave a series of lectures aboard NGO PeaceBoat on its voyage between Yokohama and Vietnam.